Question: Again, the “great multitude” are of “all nations, kindred, people and tongues:” do you judge that Christendom has no representation in this that is, that she comes into the tribulation, and is utterly cut off thereby?
Do you think the expression, “the great tribulation” embraces the whole Apocalyptic judgments, and judgments of every kind (pre-millennial of course), and touches every member of the human family on earth, save the ten tribes who are brought under the Lord’s rod in the land?
In what form does the great tribulation come upon the heathen nations—being far away from the seat of the beast?
May the “great multitude” of Rev. 7 be substantially identified with “the righteous” of Matt. 25:37?
W. R.
Answer: Christendom seems to be not included in the vague and general mass of nations on whom “the great tribulation” is to fall, having its own special description and judgment, as Babylon, &c., just as it also is distinct from the Jews and from Israel in this chapter. The Jews will pass through a tribulation severer than this, but also more circumscribed, as we may gather from Matt. 24 and Mark 13, compared with Jer. 30 and Dan. 12. The scourge is the Assyrian, or king of the north, rather than the beast who is the support of the false prophet, king in Palestine. But it is plain that the Apocalyptic period as a whole is a time of trouble increasing in intensity and over many spheres, extending to Gentiles as well as Jews; and as the everlasting gospel will go out far and wide, so I think the surviving fruit of that last mission will be seen in “the righteous” or sheep of Matt. 25, when the Son of man comes and reigns over the earth. That apostate Christendom will have the sternest doom of all, is plain from 2 Thess. 2:10-12.